IMX poised for first iron ore shipment to China

Junior iron ore miner
IMX Resources
is within days of shipping its first cargo to China from Port Adelaide after starting railing product from its Cairn Hill project in the centre of South Australia to the port almost two months ago.

The ore is due to be processed at the Bayuquan processing plant under construction in Liaoning Province, in northeast China. The plant has been specially designed to take the coarsely ground Cairn Hill ore, according to IMX general manager Simon Parsons.

Production at Cairn Hill, located about 870 kilometres northwest of Adelaide, is targeted to reach 1.7 million tonnes per year in the first phase, involving six train-loads a week. The site will move to 24-hour operation in January in tandem with the ramp-up.

A shipment would be made every 10-14 days once the project is running at capacity, Mr Parsons said.

IMX is 19.7 per cent owned by privately owned Sichuan Taifeng Group, whose chairman, Song Yuangang, is on the miner’s board. Taifeng also owns 70 per cent of the Bayuquan plant, with the rest held by Jilin Tonghua Iron & Steel, a 6.1 per cent shareholder in IMX.

Drilling is under way at Cairn Hill towards a second phase of production, targeting an 8-12 million tonne resource. Production from Phase 2 could reach 1.2 million tonnes a year by 2012, according to the company.